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SLAVERY 



Aiuericaii Board of Commissioners 



POB 



FOREIGN MISSIONS. 



NEW YORK: 

AMEKICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 138 NASSAU ST. 

BOSTON : 21 CORNHILL. 

1859. 



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2nms 



%\t ^mttlm §0art 0f Comnussi^ntrs 



; 3^ FOREIGN MISSIONS. 



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This Association, instituted in 1810 for the diffu- 
sion of the Gospel among foreign heathen nations, 
now consists of two hundred and five Corporate mem- 
bers, and more than ten thousand Honorary members. 
Its receipts from the religious public, having pretty- 
steadily increased from the commencement, amounted 
last year to more than $370,000. 

From the year 1840 to the present time, the Board 
have been urged at almost every annual meeting, by 
various petitions and memorials, to withdraw the 
support and countenance which they were affording 
to slavery. Their utter indifference in regard to that 
subject before it was forced upon them from without, 
is shown by the facts that they not only then (as 
now) freely admitted slaveholders to their churches, 
as Christians, but that several of their ,missio}iaries 
in the Cherokee and Choctaw nations were slavehold- 
ers, and others extensively used the hired labor of 
slaves, paying therefor, not the laborer himself, but 
the pretended owner of the laborer, and thus partic- 
ipating in that system which defrauded the actual 
laborer of part of his wages. Moreover, they were 



so far from discouraging slavery by church discipline, 
that Mr. Treat, one of the Secretaries of the Board, 
represented the increased number of slaves in the 
Cherokee and Choctaw nations, and the general pref- 
erence there felt for investing money in this « species 
of property,' as one of the results of ' the doctrines 
of the Gospel having exerted their appropriate influ- 
ence.' [Missionary Herald^ the official organ of the 
A. B. C. F. M., October 1848, p. 349.] 

AVe propose now to show, by ample quotation from 
the language of the Cherokee and Choctaw missiona- 
ries, (as given in the Annual Reports of the Board,) 
and from the acquiescence of the Board in the con- 
tinuance of the course of policy indicated in that lan- 
guage, that both these parties hold a pro-slaverj' (and 
thus an anti-Christian) position. 

The missionaries favor slavery in a three-fold man- 
ner ; first, by entirely abstaining from the rebuke of 
slavery, though an aggravated form of that wicked- 
ness is prosperous and flourishing in the very region 
■where they pretend to exercise the function of minis- 
ters of the Gospel ; next, by taking, and openly pro- 
claiming that they will continue to take, the men 
who are stained with that wickedness into full mem- 
bership in their churches ; and, lastly, by appealing 
to the Christian Scriptures in justification of this 
course of policy, and claiming Gods approval of it, 
thus perverting that very Christianity of which they 
pretend to be the ministers, and teaching another 
heathenism to the people whom the}' claim to have 
converted from heathenism. Here is their language : 

Extracts from the letter of the Cherokee missiona- 



ries on slavery, signed by Elizur Butler, Moderator^ 
and S. A. Worcester, Clerk : — 

* In regard to the question of rejecting any person 
from the church simply because he is a slaveholder^ 
we cannot for a moment liesitate. For (1) we regard 
it as certain that ihe Apostles, toho are our patterns, did 
receive slaveholders to the communion of ihe Church; 
and we have not yet been able to perceive any such 
difference between their circumstances and ours as to 
justify us in departing from their practice in this re- 
spect. And (2) our general rule is to receive all to 
our communion who give evidence that they love the 
Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity ; and we cannot doubt 
that many slaveholders do give sicch evidence. 

< Nor can we even make it a test of piety, or a con- 
dition of admission to the privileges of the Church, 
that a candidate shoidd express a determination not to 
live and die a slaveholder.'' — 39th Annual Report, 
1848, p. 93. 

' Occasional exchanges of masters are so inseparable 
from the existence of slavery that the churches could 
not consistently receive slaveholders to their commu- 
nion at all, and at the same time forbid all such ex- 
changes. We regard it, therefore, as impossible to 

EXERCISE DISCIPLINE FOR THE BUYING OR SELLING OF 

SLAVES, except in flagrant cases of manifest disregard 
to the welfare of the slave.' — p. 94. 

* In regard to the separation of parents and children, 
we must first remark, that it is one of those things 
which are not forbidden by any express injunction 
OF Scripture.' * * * ' It is impossible, in our 
circumstances, to make it a general rule that the sep- 
aration of parents and children, by sale or purcha&e, 
shall be regarded as a disciplinable offence.' — pp. 
94, 95. 

Extracts from the letter of the Choctaw missiona- 
ries on slavery, signed by C. Kingsbuky, Alfred 



6 

"VVrioht, Cyrus Byington, E. Hotchkin, C. C. 
CoPELAXD, David Bkeed, Jr., H. K. Copelaxd, and 
D. H. WiNSHip, with a signature of dissent from J. 
C. STRONG:— 

• We have endeavored as a mission to keep aloof 
from the abolition movement.' — p. 98. 

' "SVe feel that the Bible contains all that we have 
need to know or teach. And we prefer to use the 

PLAIX LANGUAGE OF THE BiBLE, jUSt aS it iS, UPON 
THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY.' — p. 98. 

< We wish to touch briefly on the history of our 
connection with slavery. We have been and are con- 
neciecl tcith it in tico ways; by employing slaves as 
laborers, and by admitting them and their masters to 
the Church.' — p. 98. 

' Several masters have given evidence of piety, and 
were received into the Church, because the Apos- 
tles HAVE SET us PLAIX EXAMPLES.' p. 100. 

* As a civil relation, it [slavery] exists by virtue of 
the constitution and laws of the land. We are taught 
in the Bible our duties as citizens. It may be deemed 
our duty by some to adopt a train of measures which 
shall aim in their object directly to countervail the 
whole system, and in the end undermine the entire 
fabric which human legislation has framed in regard 
to slavery. We do not feel that toe are required to 
adopt such a course. Nor do we regard this as our 
work.' — lb. 

' As slavery, with various modifications, has for a 
long time had an existence i/i the Church of God, it 
is proper for us to ixquire how the servants of 
THE Lord ix old time were taught by Him, as 

WELL AS how they COXDUCTED IN REGARD TO IT.' — 
p. 101. 

The Cherokee and Choctaw missionaries have held 
this j^rouud, and acted upon it, ever bince 1848, when 



these letters were published. And yet the Board 
continue, to this day, to emploj- and support, to re- 
commend and endorse them, as Christian missionaries, 
as ministers of the Gospel. 

To approach more nearly to an adequate conception 
of the guilt of the American Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions in this matter, we must bear in mind the fol- 
lowing facts : — 

1. The Cherokee and Choctaw Indians were slave- 
holders when the Board first established their mis- 
sions there. The Board knew that they were sending 
their missionaries -that is, the men who were to exe- 
cute their work, and to represent the character of their 
association, and also to represent Christianity — into 
the midst of slaveholders. They knew perfectly well 
that the question would come up, whether the reli- 
gious system which those missionaries were to teach 
would favor slavery or oppose slavery. And yet they 
left them without a word of direction, or even of sug- 
gestion, as to how they should meet this momentous 
question. This does not justify, nor in the slightest 
degree extenuate, the pro- slavery course which the 
missionaries pursued ; it was their imperative duty to 
make it cle"r to the ignorant and vicious people 
among whom they were laboring, that slaveholding 
was no more permitted by the Christian system than 
murder, theft, adultery or drunkenness ; they had the 
whole matter in their own power from the beginning ; 
if they kept these last-named vices out of the Church, 
why did they let slaveholding into it ? If they let 
slaveholding in, why did they keep these out ? They 
are as utterly inexcusable as a Hindoo missionary 



would be who should expressly reserve to his conycrts 
the right of worshipping Juggernaut. 

But equally inexcusable is the conduct of the 
Board, in not helping their missionaries to be faith- 
ful in this important matter by express instruction, 
warning and admonition, addressed to this very point. 
They knew not only that slaveholding was a promi- 
nent and easily besetting sin of the heathen people 
in question, but that, in neighboring regions, the 
Christian name also was prostituted to the allowance 
of it. It was their- imperative duty to have fortified 
their missionaries beforehand against this danger ; to 
have lightened the odium which Christian faithfulness 
would assuredly have brought upon them, by express 
instructions and an absolute prohibition of complicity 
with slaveholding or toleration of it for one moment 
in their Church-communion. This was the Board's 
first violation of duty in this matter. 

2. After the missionaries had entered into complic- 
ity with slavery by holding slaves, and hiring slaves, 
^n^ freely admitting slaveholders into their churches^ 
xcithout a xoord of protest against the system, the Board 
still kept silence. They made no objection to either 
of these forms of sin. And the whole history of the 
transaction shows why they made no objection ! It 
was because they felt none ! It was because they 
were perfectly willing to see slavery taken under the 
protection of their churches, and to see the Christian 
name abused to the extent of becoming its bulwark ! 
They remained silent and indifferent, even after this 
wickedness had been exposed to the public gaze by 
the Abolitionists ; and it was not until the subsequent 



echoing of this remonstrance by some of their own 
contributors, who had been converted by the Aboli- 
tionists, that they did any thing whatever in the 
premises. Their silence gave consent to the sin, so 
long as it was possible to remain silent. 

3. Before the Board finally disposed of the pro- 
slavery letters of the Cherokee and Choctaw mission- 
aries, and of the temporizing reply of Mr. Treat, by 
leaving them all in the hands of that Prudential Com- 
mittee of ichom Mr. Treat had been the mouthpiece, 
Rev. Dr. Blanchard, of Illinois, moved the following 
resolutions by way of amendment : — 

♦Resolved, That this Board distinctly admits and 
affirms the principle, that slaveholding is a practice 
which is not to be allowed in the Christian Church. 

• Resolved, That it is, in the judgment of the Board, 
the duty of our missionaries in the Cherokee and 
Choctaw nations to discontinue the practice of hiring 
slaves of their owners to do the work of the missions ; 
and, in the reception of members, to act on the prin- 
ciple laid down by Mr. Treat and the Prudential 
Committee, that slaveholding is prima facie evidence 
against the piety of the candidates applying for ad- 
mission to the church.' 

This amendment was unanimously rejected ; but 
afterwards, in consideration of Dr. Blanchard's con- 
sent to withdraw it, the rejection was reconsidered by 
a vote of forty to thirteen, and the following compro- 
mise ended the matter. Dr. Blanchard withdrew his 
resolutions, and the Board agreed that they might be 
entered on the records of the meeting. 

4. When the Board were forced, by the increased 
number of remonstrances from their contributors, and 



10 

the prospective danger of withdrawal of contributions, 
to do something in regard to slavery, that something 
was manifestly directed to a removal of the reproach, 
and of the agitation consequent upon it, rather than 
of the sin. It was plain, alike from what the Board 
did then, and from what they had refrained from do- 
ing before, that they did not care for the oppression 
suffered by the slaves, nor for the sin of authenticat- 
ing that oppression by the admission of its perpetra- 
tors to their churches. They wanted merely that 
which would serve to avert agitation, and to continue 
the contribution of cash to their coffers. They want- 
ed, in relation to slavery, just what their dear brother 
William A. Hallock, Secretary of the Tract Society, 
wanted, in relation to the rejection, by that body, of 
Rev. Samuel Wolcott's tract, entitled, 'The Sin of 
Oppression ' — namely, • to let the matter best 
WITHOUT noise' ! Wo Say they wanted only this, 
because they acted as if they wanted nothing else. 
And this is what they did. 

When it was no longer possible to keep silence 
without losing men and money, the Board changed 
its line of policy, and used pious talk instead of silent 
indifference as a shield against agitation. Their Pru- 
dential Committees, and their Special Committees, 
and their Special Agents, between the years 1844 
and 1850 wrote voluminously (though by no means 
luminously) about slavery — 'about it, and about it.' 
They specially avoided giving instructions or direc- 
tions to their missionaries, but they made an immense 
amount of pious dissertation, exhortation and ampli- 
fication, into which were infused all sorts of remon- 



11 

strances, queries, hints, suggestions and insinuations, 
which plainly meant — like the whispered stage ' aside,' 
the wink, or the nudge, which the double-dealer 
privately gives to one par*y, while the other side of 
his face presents a profound seriousness to the other 
parties concerned, and to the throng of spectators — 
• Can't you get this confounded thing out of our icay V 
They mixed these substantial and designed-to-be-ef- 
fective ingredients of their communications (varied 
by fine shades of gradation from open remonstrance 
to wink-like suggestion) with an immense mass of 
plausible matter adapted to quiet the doubts of 
their own remonstrants and of the public. They 
wrote pages upon pages of indefinite pious phraseol- 
ogy, and as much more of pious phraseology particu- 
larly directed to the subject of slavery. They wrote 
against slavery very hard and severe things, indeed 
almost every thing that was bad, except the decision 
that it was unfit for admission to the Christian Church. 
They used again and again language which would 
have been quite sufficient for the utter condemnation 
of slavery, if it had not gone side by side with the 
suggestion of excuses for that sin, and the express 
admissioji that the pro-slavery missiotiaries were, after 
all, to have their own way in the matter, and take as 
many slaveholders into their churches as they chose. 

There were, howev^er, two cl.asses of pro-slavery 
men who were dissatisfied with this double-barrelled 
arrangement of the Reports of the Board. The more 
ignorant and stupid of the slaveholding church- 
members of the South -were not satisfied to have any 
alloy of anti-slavery talk mixed with the liberal al- 



12 

lowancc of pro-slavfiry life and practice which the 
Board had conceded to them. They wanted their 
• peculiar institution ' praised as well as allowed, and 
they took umbrage at those pious generalities of the 
Board which spoke ill of slavery in the very act of 
allowing it. The complaints of these people, (who 
were so stupid as not to know, or so ungrateful 
as not to care, that the Board was doing the very ut- 
most in its power for them,) enforced by the com- 
plaints of the missionaries themselves, brought out a 
new statement from the Board in 1849, defining its 
own position. 

The missionaries also took umbrage, and not without 
reason, at the wounds that had thus been given them 
in the house of their friends. They knew that the 
Board, xchich itself included slaveholders among its 
members, had no intrinsic objection then, any more 
than formerly, to their admission of slaveholders to 
the mission churches ; they knew that the pious talk 
against slavery in the Annual Reports was put there 
only ' for Buncombe,' and was brought out only by the 
pertinacious inquiries and remonstrances of a small 
minority of the contributors to its fund ; and they 
very naturally felt aggrieved at the large amount of 
verbal ce/isure of slavery which the Board had incor- 
porated with its continued allowance of slavery. 
Therefore they also complained, and in the Annual 
lieport for 1849, the Board published the following 
explanatory and deprecatory clauses in relation to the 
letter above mentioned, written (by direction of the 
Prudential Committee) by llev. Selah B. Treat, one 
of the Corresponding Secretaries, to the Cherokee and 



ii 

Choctaw missions, and published in the previous An- 
nual Report, pp. 102—111. The italics are those of 
the Report. 

♦ The letter sent by Mr. Treat to the mission had 
not that authoritative character which some have at- 
tributed to it. It expressed opinions, then and still 
entertained by the Committee ; but not in a form 
which made those opinions decisions^ or instructions. 
The Committee have given no instructions to the mis- 
sionaries in relation to slavery ; they say expressly 
that they address their brethren « with suggestions and 
arguments.' The distinction between suggestions, 
opinions and arguments, on the one hand, and deci- 
sions, rules and instructions on the other, though ne- 
cessarily familiar to the conductors of missions, seems 
to have been overlooked by some who have written on 
this subject.' p. 72. 

***** 

♦ This distinction is vital to the proper understand- 
ing of Mr. Treat's letter to the Choctaw mission ; and 
for want of attention to it, very erroneous constructions 
have been put upon that letter. With this practical 
distinction in view, moreover, it will be seen that the 
Committee and the Secretaries have done nothing in- 
consistent with the letter or spirit of the two funda- 
mental principles recognized by the Board at Brook- 
lyn ; namely, tliat credible evidence of piety is the 
only thing to be required for admission into the 
Churches gathered among the heathen ; and that mis- 
sionaries and their Churches are the rightful and ex- 
clusive judges as to the sufficiency of this evidence.' 
lb. 

* * * * * 

« Nor have the Committee preferred any * charges ' 
against the mission. On the contrary, they would 
repeat the sentiment in the letter of *Mr. Treat, ex- 
pressing their undiminished «' confidence in the in- 
tegrity and faithfulness of these servants of Christ." ' 
lb. 



14 

The first of these paragraphs is an admission, on the 
part of the Board, that the pious talk unfavorable to 
slavery in their Reports "vvas merely talk, and not de- 
signed or expected to modify the action of ihe pro- 
slavery missionaries. 

The second paragraph gives us the theory by which 
the Board undertake to justify their tolerance of 
slaveholders in the Mission Churches. They, the 
Board (they say), are not the persons to examine and 
decide upon the claims of candidates for membership 
in the Mission Churches ! Oh ! no, certainly not ! 
♦ The missionaries and their Churches are the rightful 
and exclusive judges ' of that matter ; and so, if a mis- 
sionary and his Church, in a slaveholding country, 
mutually agree that slavery shall be supported by the 
sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, the 
Board must acquiesce, however different may be their 
opinion ! Say you so, gentlemen of the Board = 
Then answer us this question. If a missionary and 
his Church, in Hindostan, shall agree together to ad- 
mit to church membership those who annually join in 
the Juggernaut procession, and claim it as a Christian 
right still to do so, will you then content yourself 
merely with the expression of an adverse opinion f 
Will you then refrain from giving insti'uctions, while 
at the same time you continue the pecuniary support 
of such missionaries and such Churches ? We have a 
right, and the public have a right, to look for a reply 
to these questions. 

The third paragraph above quoted from the 40th 
Annual Report of the Board contains their full au- 
thentication of their pro- slavery missionaries among 
the Cherokees and Choctawsas Christianm\\\\&iex&. 



15 

These missionaries had shown as much complaisance 
in regard to the suggested * opinions ' of the Board as 
could reasonably be expected. They had, in an early 
stage of the controversy, yielded so far as to discon- 
tinue slaveholding in their own persons, and to abridge, 
at considerable sacrifice of personal convenience, the 
amount of their hiring of slave labor. But when it 
came to having their own peculiar battery of pious 
talk turned against themselves — when the very bul- 
letins that contained the allowance of their slavehold- 
ing Churches were pieced out with whole pages of 
unpleasant reflections upon the character and influ- 
ence of slavery — when the very men whom they knew 
to have approved the beginning and the continuance 
of their pro- slavery work now pointed disparaging 
• opinions, suggestions and arguments ' at them before 
the eyes of men — they could not bear it ! Human 
nature could hardly be expected to bear it ! So, upon 
the point that slavery, however had it might be, was 
good enough to be received into their Churches, they 
made a firm stand, taking the ground (as we have 
shown by their own words, written in 1848, and quot- 
ed at the commencement of this article) — 

1. That slaveholding was authorized by the New 
Testament. 

2. That, therefore, they were fully determined not 
to make slaveholding a ground either for the expul- 
sion of a church-member or the rejection of a candi- 
date. 

3. That they would not exercise discipline in the 
Church either against the general buying and selling 
of slaves, or the sale of children away from their 
parents. 



16 

4. That they would not adoi)t any train of meas- 
ures which should even tend ' in the end ' to overthrow 
slavery. 

The missionaries, we have said, planted themselves 
firmly upon this ground. But since the Board — while 
allowing them to retain this position, and to shelter 
slavery in the Church as thoroughly as they pleased 
— continued the practice of using pious quasi anti- 
slavery talk in their Annual Reports, six of the seven 
Choctaw missionaries, in November, 1855, sent in a 
letter of resignation. The Prudential Committee of 
the Board, having really no objection to the position 
and course of policy of the missionaries, desired them 
to recall their letter of resignation ; and to this request 
the six missionaries replied, under date of Lenox, 
Choctaw Nation, Sept. 6th, 1856. The whole letter 
is given in the New York Observer of Dec. 2d, 1858. 
After rehearsing their pro-slavery ground, the six 
missionaries say : 

* If, loith the foregoing vietos — ichich are Jcnoxcn by 
the people among lohom ice labor — the Prudential Com- 
mittee should deem it wise to continue our support, 
we are willing to try to remain in their service. Ac- 
cordingly, Ave have estimated our expenses for the en- 
suing year. If, on the other hand, the Committee 
should not think it best to retain us, we shall not ex- 
pect them to grant us the estimates.' 

The Observer gives the signatures to this document 
as follows — 

C. Kingsbury, C. C. Copeland, 

C. Byixgtox, O. p. Stakk, 

E. lIoTciiKix, J. Edwakds, 

and it adds : 



17 

* The Prudential Committee took the subject into 
consideration, and, ^vith this letter before them, made the 
tisual appro2}riations. The missionaries, being thus 
left at liberty' to pursue their work in their own way, 
have continued to prosecute their labors with their 
usual success.' 

The statement of this transaction in the succeeding 
Annual Report of the Board (for 1856) illustrates so 
perfectly the pious trickery of reservation, misrepre- 
sentation and insinuation with which these documents 
are made up, that we quote it in full from the lOoth 
page :— 

* In the month of November, four brethren of this 
mission forwarded a letter to the Missionary House, 
expressing their wish to be released from their connec- 
tion with the Board. The Prudential Committee, 
conceiving that these brethren had misapprehended 
the true state of the relations existing between them 
and the Board, directed an answer to this letter to be 
prepared and forwarded by the Secretary having 
charge of the correspondence with the Indian mis- 
sions. A reply to this communication has recently 
been received, in which the missionaries intimated a 
willingness to continue their relations to the Board, 
awaiting the issues of further correspondence. Under 
these circumstances, the Committee have informed 
them that, upon receiving their estimates, which they 
propose forwarding, for the current year, the cus- 
tomary appropriations will be made. The Committee 
apprehend that a publication of the correspondence 
pending at the present time would be detrimental to 
the interests of the mission ; experience having shown 
that, while negotiations are in progress between the 
Committee and missionaries, a public discussion of the 
subject tends to hinder the parties from coming to a 
harmonious result.* 



18 

Thus, in the ingenious phraseology of this Report, 
the -wish of the Board (like that of the Tract Society, 
and of the "business men's prayer-meetings') to let 
the subject of slavery ' rest without noise,' is set forth 
as an apprehension that publicity -would be • detri- 
mental to the interests of the mission ' ; the six mis- 
sionaries whose names are signed to the letter publish- 
ed by the Observer are compressed into ^four brethren 
of this mission ' ; the threat of these * brethren ' that 
they would leave the Board, unless its quasi anti- sla- 
very talk should be counterbalanced by a distinctly 
renewed license to their pro-slavery position, becomes, 
by this process of ' free translation,' a conception of 
the Prudential Committee that these brethren ' had 
misapprehended the true state of the relations exist- 
ing between them and the Board' ; and finally, that 
yielding of the Board to the missionaries' demand 
which closed the negotiation is felicitously veiled by 
the phrases — < the missionaries intimated a willingness 
to continue their relations to the Board,' and ' under 
these circumstances the Committee have informed 
them that the customary appropriations will be made.* 

In the Annual Report for 1857, the very year after 
this renewed settlement of affsiirs upon a pro-slavery 
basis, the Committee say respecting these missions : 

* We cannot too highly appreciate tlie perseverance, 
the faithfulness, and the cheerful and self-denying 
labors of our missionaries. The Committee see dan- 
gers threatening ; but they are of such a nature as can 
be warded off only by divine interposition. They seb 

NO CHANGE TO RECOMMEND, UulcSS it be tO SUggCSt tO 

our brethren the inquiry whether there may not be 



\ 



19 

more attention directed to the training up of natives 
for teachers and pastors.' 

This is as if a Temperance Committee, being called 
to report on the state of the various eating-houses in 
this city, should gravely state that 'They see no 
change to recommend, unless to suggest the inquiry 
whether there may not be more attention directed to 
the training up of young men for bar-keepers ' ! 

Lastly, in the 49th Annual Report, published near 
the close of 1858, the Board still allow the complicity 
of the missionaries with slavery to pass without either 
rebuke for the past or prohibition for the future. But 
the maw;ier of allowing an undisturbed continuance to 
• this pro-slavery position— the method by which they 
let the subject alone, in the very act of seeming to at- 
tend to it and regulate it— is so peculiar, and so illus- 
trative of the indirection with which this whole matter 
of slavery has been managed by the Board, as to be 
worthy of careful scrutiny. 

In the first place, the Report proper of the Pru- 
dential Committee ^extending from p. 23 to p. 147 of 
the Annual Report of the Board) contains not one 
word about slavery, good, bad or indifferent, though 
it certifies, in general, the ♦ fidelity ' of the missiona- 
ries, and gives a particular detail of efforts and suc- 
cesses in the cause of ' Temperance.' Moreover, the 
Resolutions introduced, i,p. 18) in behalf of the Pru- 
dential Committee, by Rev. Dr. S. Ji. Pomroy, one of 
the Secretaries, contain not the slightest allusion to 
slavery. 

The preceding portion of the Forty-Ninth Annual 
Report (pp. 3—22) is occupied by ' Minutes of the 



20 

Annual Meeting ' of the Board, and on pages 16 and 
17 we find the following report of a special commit- 
tee, to whom had been referred that portion of the 
lleport of the Prudential Committee which related to 
the Cherokee and Choctaw Indians : — 

' The committee to whom was referred that part of 
the Annual lleport entitled ' North American Indi- 
ans, No. 1,' liave had the same under consideration, 
and respectfully report : 

That the missions included in the document wliich 
was referred to this committee, are the mission to the 
Dakotas and those to the partially civilized nations 
iai the Indian territory. 

At Ilarlford, in ISoi, the views of the Board were 
clearly and definitely expressed in regard to certain 
laws and acts of the Choctaw government, which 
were designed to restrain the liberty of the missiona- 
ries as teachers of God's word. All the action of the 
Board since that date, and, so far as we are informed, 
the action of the Prudential Committee also, has been 
in conformity with the principles then put upon rec- 
ord, (a) 

Your committee have reason to believe that the po- 
sition of our missionaries among the Choctaws is one 
of much difficulty and peril. Among the various re- 
ligious bodies in the States nearest to the Choctaw na- 
tion, there has been, as is Avell known, within the last 
twenty-tive 3'ears, a lamentable defection from some 
of the first and most elementary ideas of Christian 
morality, insomuch that Christianity has been repre- 
sented as the warrant for a system of slavery which 
offends the moral sense of the Christian world, and 
Christ has thereby been represented as the minister 
of sin. Our brethren among the Choctaws are in 
ecclesiastical relations with religious bodies in the ad- 
joining States, the States from wi^ich the leading 
Choctaws are deriving their notions of civilization and 
of government. In thobo neighboring States, and 



\ 



21 

in the Choctaw nation, the missionaries are watched 
by the upholders of slavery, who are ready to seize 
upon the first opportunity of expelling them from the 
field in which they liave so long been laboring. By 
the enemies of the Eoard and of the missionaries, our 
brethren are charged with what are called, in those 
regions, the dangerous doctrines of abolitionism. At 
the same time they are charged, in other quarters, 
with the guilt of silence in the presence of a great 
and hideous wickedness, (b) 

It seems, to your committee, desirable that the 
Board should be relieved, as early as possible, from 
the unceasing embarrassments and perplexities con- 
nected with the missions in the Indian territory. 
Surely the time is not far distant, when the Choctaw 
and Cherokee Indians and half-breeds will stand in 
precisely the same relations to the missionary work 
with the white people of the adjacent States ; and 
token the c/mrches there will be the subjects of home 
missionarrj more properly than of foreign missionary 
patronage.' (c) 

On the whole, your committee, with these sugges- 
tions, recommend that the Report of the Prudential 
Committee, as referred to them, be accepted and ap- 
proved, (d) 

The chairman of the special committee which made 
this Keport was Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon of New 
Haven, Since he had been active in complaints of 
the pro-slavery position of the American Tract Socie- 
ty, he seems to have thought it necessary to mention 
the subject of slavery here. To what purpose, and 
with how much effect, it is mentioned, a little exam- 
ination will show. 

The paragraph marked (a) seems (does it not ?) 
to express satisfaction in the action of the Board at 
Hartford, in 1854. What was that action? 



22 

On turning to the Annual Report for 1854, -we 
find a long special report, presented by Dr. Pom- 
roy (pp. 25 — 32) containing not one -word about slave- 
ry- 

We find also (p. 24) the following resolution (re- 
ported by a committee of which Dr. Bacon was a 
member) adopted by the Board : 

♦ Kesolved, That the Board acknowledge, with grat- 
itude to God, the wisdom and Jidelity with which, so 
far as appears from the documents submitted to them, 
the Prudential Committee are advising axu direct- 
IXG the missionaries among the Choctaws, in conformi- 
ty with the principles asserted by them in their corres- 
pondence with those missions, reported to the Board 
in 1848.' 

\S''e find also, in the official ' Remarks upon the 
Meeting,' (p. 45) this statement respecting the mean- 
ing of the above resolution : — 

< The debate which grew out of the Report of the 
Choctaw mission, awakened a general and absorbing 
interest. The question was ultimately narrowed to a 
single point, namely, ' Shall the general principles 
of the letter addressed by the Prudential C'ommittee 
to tlie Choctaw mission, in 1848, receive the express 
sanction of the Board ? ' It was admitted that these 
principles had received an implied sanction. In fact, 
there could have been no controversy on this point. 
A, committee on this letter and other documents rec- 
ommended to the meeting of 1848, ' that the whole 
subject should be left for the present' 'in the hands 
of the Prudential Committee ; ' which recomm.enda- 
tion was adopted by the Board. Nor was this all. 
'J'he Prudential Committee were all re-elected at that 
meeting ; and they have been re-chosen annually, ex- 
cept in case of death or removal, from that time to 



I 



23 

this. They have felt, therefore, that their views 
must be considered as having the i?7i2Jlied sanction 
of the Board ; and they have acted accordingly.' 

Both these documents, the Resolution and the Re- 
marks, refer us back to the action of the Prudential 
Committee in 1848. To find out what these mean, 
therefore, and to find out what the Rev. Leonard Ba- 
con means by his approval of the action of the Board 
at Hartford, in 1854, we must turn back to the An- 
nual Report for 1848. 

The Report for 1848 is the very one from which 
we have quoted at the commencement of this arti- 
cle, containing, 1. the letters of the Cherokee and 
Choctaw missionaries, declaring their settled deter- 
mination still to admit slaveholders to their church- 
es, and, 2. the temporizing reply of the Prudential 
Committee through Mr. Secretary Treat, respecting 
which a disclaimer (above inserted) was placed in the 
next Annual Report, saying that Mr. Treat's letter 
* expressed ojiinions, but not decisions or instructions' — 
and that * This distinction is vital to the proper under- 
standing of Mr. Treat's letter.' 

That course of policy, therefore, of the Board, which 
Dr. Bacon seems to approve in the paragraph marked 
(a), is a systematic allowance that their missionaries 
may receive slaveholders, as Christians, into their 
churches, pleading the Bible as their warrant for this 
most efficient support of slavery. 

Dr. Bacon's paragraph marked (b) presents as an 
excuse for the missionaries that which is really an ad- 
ditional crime on their part — namely, the maintenance 
of fraternal ecclesiastical relations with the slavehold- 



24 

ing churches of Texas, Arkansas and Missouri. It 
further presents that dislike of the missionaries which 
is undoubtedly felt by the profane, intemperate and 
brutal propagandists of slavery in those States, as pre- 
sumptive evidence that those missionaries hold a right 
position on the subject of slaverj'. 

Thus far in his Keport, Dr. Bacon has proposed to 
the Board no action whatever to check the fraterniza- 
tion of their missionaries and mission churches with 
slavery. lie proposes none in the whole course of 
that document. But, (amazing as it may seem in a 
man who is reputed to be farther advanced towards 
anti-slavery than the great majority of the churches) 
in paragraph (c) he anticipates with pleasure, as the 
iicans of relieving the Board from the embarrassments 
and perplexities which a pro-slavery policy has brought 
upon it, the speedy application of these converted 
Cherokees and Choctaws for admission to tlie Union 
as a slave State, the success of which would, as a mat- 
ter of course, transfer them from the Foreign Mission- 
ary to the Home Missionary department ; and he 
closes, in paragraph (d), by recommending to the ap- 
proval of the Board that Ileport of the Prudential 
Committee, which utterly ignores the subject of sla- 
very. 

Such is the position of the American Board of Com- 
missioners for Foreign Missions. And such it has per- 
manently been, from the commencement of its missions 
among the Cherokees and Choctaws, to the present 
moment. — c. k. w. 



54 If 



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